British Industrial History

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SIR EDWARD FRANKLAND, K.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.,
was born at Churchtown, near Lancaster, on the 18th January, 1825.

After receiving his early education at the Lancaster
Grammar School, he studied chemistry under Playfair, in the
laboratory of the Museum of Practical Geology, and there began,
jointly with Kolbe, his first research, which dealt with the
transformation of the cyanogen radicle into carboxyl. During
1847-48 he held the post of Science Master at Queenwood College, Hants.

In 1848 he went to Germany, where he continued his
researches, first in Bunsen’s laboratory, at Marburg, and afterwards
in that of Liebig, at Giessen.

In 1851 he was appointed Professor
of Chemistry at Owens College, Manchester, being the first
occupant of the chair. After holding that position for nearly seven
years he removed to London as head of the chemical department
in the Medical School of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

In 1863 he
was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of
Great Britain, in succession to Faraday, and in l865 he followed
Hofmann in the same capacity at the Royal College of Chemistry,
a post which he held until his final retirement in 1885, although
meanwhile the Institution had been merged in the Normal School
of Science (now the Royal College of Science) and Royal School of
Mines, and the chair had been transferred to South Kensington.
Frankland‘s scientific work, as an inspection of his collected
“Experimental Researches in Pure, Allied, and Physical
Chemistry” will show, covers almost the entire field of chemical
science.

In pure chemistry, one of his earliest researches, begun at
Queenwood in 1847, dealt with the isolation of the alcohol
radicles, the hypothetical hydrocarbon groups supposed to be
contained in the alcohols and their derivatives. He succeeded in
obtaining compounds of the expected composition; but the
discovery lost much of its interest when it was recognised, by the
application of Avogadro’s law to these compounds, that they had
twice the molecular weight which Frankland originally assigned
to them-thus his isolated radicle methyl proved to be identical
with the hydrocarbon ethane. Incidentally, however, in the
course of this work, he discovered the compounds of the alcohol
radicles with zinc - zinc-methyl and its homologues - analogous
to Bunsen's cacodyl. The method employed in their preparation
was of general application, and numerous members of this class of
organo metallic compounds, containing tin, lead, mercury and
similar metals, were thus obtained by Frankland and other
investigators. These substances were of great scientific interest,
not merely on account of their remarkable physical properties and
the numerous applications of which they showed themselves
capable in chemical synthesis, but because the study of them led
Frankland in 1852 to the enunciation of the law of valency (loc.
cit.). This law, which states that the affinity of each atom is
fully satisfied by combination with a fixed number of other atoms
of a given kind, forms one of the foundation-stones of modern
chemical theory.

Later on, he devoted himself more especially to the subject of
chemical synthesis, and his researches on the synthesis of acids of
the lactic series, of the acrylic series, of ethers, of fatty acids,
and of ketones, belong to the recognised classics of organic
chemistry. This work was carried out jointly with the late Mr. B. F. Duppa, F.R.S.

In the domain of physico-chemical research, one of Frankland's
most important investigations dealt with the illuminating power
of flames. He started with the intention of ascertaining whether
the rate of combustion of substances was influenced by changes in
atmospheric pressure, and for this purpose he burnt candles,
determining their loss in weight per hour, first at Chamounix, and
afterwards on the summit of Mont Blanc, where, in company with
Professor Tyndall, he spent a night. The result of the experiment
was to show that the rate of combustion in the two cases was
practically the same, but that the illuminating power was greatly
reduced at the reduced pressure. On his return to England, he
proved by means of photometric experiments carried out with
flames burnt under pressures which could be varied at will, that,
up to two atmospheres, the illuminating power was directly
proportional to the atmospheric pressure, but that above two
atmospheres, it increased more rapidly than the pressure. At
high pressures, flames which gave hardly any light under ordinary
conditions, became strongly luminous; thus, under a pressure of
from ten atmospheres to twenty atmospheres, a hydrogen flame
became bright enough to read by. These observations, proving as
they did that the illuminating power of flames was connected
with their density, led Frankland to propound the view that the
light emitted by hydro-carbon flames was due to the presence of
ignited, very dense, vaporous hydro-carbons in the flame, instead
of, as taught by Davy, to ignited particles of solid carbon. This
view Frankland supported by many ingenious experiments and
with great wealth of illustration; but, in later years, he somewhat
receded from this position, and, in lecturing to students,
was wont to admit that at least a portion of the light of such
flames was produced in accordance with Davy’s view.

The retardation in the combustion of time fuses at great
altitudes, which appeared to contradict the results Frankland had
obtained with candles, was also explained by him in the memoir
just referred to. He showed that substances which, like gunpowder,
contained the oxygen necessary for their own combustion,
would behave differently towards changes of pressure from those
which obtained their oxygen from the air, the reduced pressure in
the former case occasioning a rapid withdrawal of the burning
gases from the fuse and consequently diminishing their chance of
rapidly inflaming the still unburnt portion of the charge.
Spectrum analysis for a time claimed Frankland’s attention.
In a letter to Tyndall, written in 1861 and published in the
Philosophical Magazine, he calls attention to the fact that at high
temperatures a blue line makes its appearance in the lithium
spectrum. This was, it is believed, the first observation of the
variation of spectra with temperature. He also published, jointly
with Mr. (now Sir) J. Norman Lockyer, various researches on
gaseous spectra in relation to the physical constitution of the sun,
stars, and nebula’ The heavy work connected with the Rivers
Commission compelled him to discontinue this work, as, indeed,
most of his other work in pure science.

In 1865 Frankland, Fick, and Wislicenus arranged an experiment
to put to a crucial test the theory that the source of muscular
power is the oxidation and destruction of the muscles themselves.
They intended to confine themselves to a non-nitrogenous diet,
and to ascend the Faulhorn, taking strict account of the greatest
possible muscular oxidation by determining the amount of nitrogen
expelled from the body of each person before, during, and after
the ascent of the mountain. Frankland was prevented from
taking part in the ascent, which was carried out by Fick and
Wislicenus, but upon him devolved the subsequent laboratory
analyses, as also certain calorimetric experiments to determine the
heat values of different kinds of food. The result of the investigation
was to show that the muscle is a machine, the energy of
which is generated by the combustion of non-nitrogenous fuel,
such as fats or carbo-hydrates.

Other physical investigations carried out by Frankland dealt
with the subjects of the glacial period, climate, and solar intensity.
This work was carried out during holiday rambles, chiefly in
Switzerland and Norway. The material for a research into the
nature and causes of dry fog was found nearer home. During
dense London fogs the hygrometer frequently indicates that the
air is far from being saturated with moisture. Frankland showed
that if a drop of water is exposed, for even a very short time, to
the action of coal smoke, its evaporation is enormously retarded,
this effect being due to the invisible film of coal oil which forms
on the surface of the drop; and he pointed out that this condition
is present in the case of the minute globules of water which
constitute a town fog, thus accounting both for the persistency
and for the irritant quality of these familiar plagues.
Frankland‘s earliest work in applied chemistry was carried out
in 1861, just after his election to the chair of chemistry at the
Owens College, Manchester, and consisted in an examination of a
new process for the manufacture of an enriched water-gas. He
devoted much attention to the question of the illuminating power
of gas, and invented, in 1854, the earliest form of regenerative
burner, an account of which was published in Ure’s “Dictionary
of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines.” It consisted of an Argand
burner fitted with two concentric glass chimneys, the air supplied
to the flame passing downwards between the two chimneys, and
having its temperature thus raised to about 500” F. or 600’ F.
before it reached the flame. This burner gave an increase of
67 per cent. in light, with an equal consumption of gas. He also
devised, along with Mr. W. J. Ward, an improved apparatus for
the analysis of gases, which combined the accuracy of Bunsen’s
well-known process with a rapidity in working impossible by the
older method. A simplified form of the same apparatus was afterwards
used by Frankland in measuring the gases obtained in his
'combustion process' for determining carbon and nitrogen in
water analysis.

Frankland was, however, best known, at least to the general
public, as the greatest living authority on water-supply. His
connection with this subject dated from 1865, when, in succeeding
Hofmann at the Royal School of Mines, he undertook to continue,
for the Registrar-General, the monthly analyses of the metropolitan
waters which had been commenced a few months earlier
by his predecessor. These monthly analytical reports he continued
to furnish to the time of his death. In taking up this
work, the processes of water analysis then known to chemists
were brought under his notice; and he soon found that several of
them were highly untrustworthy-especially those which had for
their object the detection of pollution by sewage or animal matters.
After a very laborious series of experiments, extending over about
two years, in which he was joined by his then pupil, Professor
H. E. Armstrong, he succeeded in devising processes by which
the carbon and nitrogen of the polluting organic matter actually
present in the water at the moment of analysis, and the nitrogen
of previously existing animal matter, could be determined with
accuracy.

In 1868 he was appointed a member of the second
Royal Commission on the Pollution of Rivers and Domestic
Water-Supply; and for carrying out the necessary investigations
he was furnished by the Government with a specially equipped
laboratory. The work of this Commission occupied him during
six years, and the voluminous reports drawn up by him embodied
an exhaustive discussion of the problems of water-supply.
Amongst the subjects considered were: the chemical quality of
water from different sources ; the possibility of rendering polluted
water again wholesome ; the propagation of epidemic diseases by
potable water; the alleged influence of the hardness of potable
water upon health; the deterioration of water during its transmission
through mains and service pipes; the quality of the
London water-supply as derived respectively from the Thames,
the Lee, the deep wells in the chalk and the shallow wells in the
Metropolis. The shallow wells were of course unhesitatingly
condemned ; but as regards the river supplies, although he was at
first opposed to their use, yet latterly, when modern processes of
filtration on a large scale, as practised by the Water Companies,
became developed, and their purifying action was better understood,
he changed his opinion, and, in a lecture delivered before
the Royal Institution in 1896, declared unhesitatingly in favour
of the Thames as a source of water-supply for London.

After his retirement from his professorship, Frankland busied
himself, amongst other things, with investigating the chemistry
of storage batteries, on which subject he published three Papers
in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. The electric installation
at his residence, at Reigate, included a battery of accumulators
constructed on a system of his own.

In addition to his numerous researches, Frankland published
“Lecture Notes for Chemical Students.” In these he employed
a new chemical notation he had devised which expressed, in a
very compendious form, the constitution of the various compounds.
The system has not been adopted by chemists, the
reason being that for inorganic chemistry it was hardly required,
while for the rapidly expanding science of organic chemistry it
did not prove sufficiently elastic.

Frankland was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853,
and a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences
in 1866. He was also a foreign member of the Academies of
Bavaria, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Upsala, America and Bohemia.
Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. in 1873, and
Edinburgh that of LL.D. in 1884. He was President of the
Chemical Society in 1871, first President of the Institute of
Chemistry in 1877, and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society
from 1895 to the time of his death. The latter Society awarded
him a Royal Medal - the highest distinction of that kind in its
gift-in 1894. In 1895, on the occasion of Her Majesty’s Jubilee,
he was made a K.C.B.

He was twice married, first, in 1851, to Sophie, daughter of
Herr F. W. Fick, Chief Engineer to the Electorate of Hessen-
Cassel, and secondly, in 1877, to Ellen Frances, eldest daughter of
Mr. C. K. Grenside, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. She
also predeceased him. Dr. Percy Frankland, F.R.S., Professor of
Chemistry in the Mason University College, Birmingham, well
known for his researches on optically active compounds and on
the chemical action of micro-organisms, is the second son of the
first marriage.

Sir Edward Frankland died, after a very brief illness, on the
9th August, 1899, in Norway, where, for many years, he had been
in the habit of spending his summer holidays, in the pursuit of
his favourite sport of salmon fishing. His death preceded by a
week that of his old teacher, Bunsen.

Frankland’s fame, doubtless, will ultimately rest on his contributions
to pure chemistry. In spite of the enormous practical
importance of the advances which he made in the methods and
conclusions of sanitary science, this work is, from its very nature,
liable to be superseded; and even the parts which survive are
ultimately incorporated, without acknowledgment, with the work
of others. But the man who has discovered a new law of nature,
and has enriched chemistry with some of the most extraordinary
substances known to it, has secured a place in the history of
science from which no changes of fashion can oust him.

He was elected an Honorary Member of the Institution of Civil
Engineers on the 9th January, 1894, on the ground that by his
distinguished attainments, his long and extensive experience of
the chemical aspect of works of water-supply and sewage-treatment,
and his consistent and disinterested advocacy of the supply of
water of a high standard of purity, he had helped to advance the
objects of the Institution.